Pages

Hello,It's Monday so that means one thing A-Z of surface pattern challenge day! Today L is for light bulb. This pattern I entered into the Quincy lampshade competition. Unfortunately is wasn't successful but I had a lot of fun designing it! We had a fixed palette of colours and a certain size we had to design to.

A little while ago, when I did my 'design a day' challenge I created another light bulb pattern which helped inspire these designs:

Today my feature Friday blog post is about the wonderful Becky Peabody of Dots and Spots. I absolutely LOVE this woman's work and have been following her blog for a number of years now. Her work incorporates gorgeous torn papers to create fantastic designs. She has such a unique style that I find is instantly recognisable. Becky has been kind enough on numerous occasions to offer me help and advice about setting up a small business, as she has done it herself. She not only creates wonderful cards but also notebooks, mugs and so much more I urge you to take a look at her websitehere.

This week Dots and Spots has turned 5 years old and in celebration Becky is offering 25% off everything- to find out more click here.

This week I am featuring surface pattern designer and illustrator Yaz Raja. I met Yaz when I studied several surface pattern modules at Staffordshire University. Her designs are all hand drawn and painted using watercolours, she then uses Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to edit her work. Yaz's designs are inspired by both nature and fashion.

She sells an array of products with her drawings on such as t-shirts, tote bags and phone cases they can be found in her Etsy shop and her Society 6 shop. It's really worth having a look.

Good morning,Hope you all had a lovely weekend and the sun shone where you were. Today I am on to the next letter of my alphabet challenge. I entered this design into the Tigerprint female surface pattern competition and although it didn't win it got through to the top 100 out of 700 which I was chuffed with.

Before I went away I mentioned that I wanted to start a little feature on my blog every Friday to highlight other surface pattern designers who inspire me. The First Designer I would like to feature is the lovely Gabrielle Treanor of The Green Gables. I have only recently come across her work, but my what a find! Her work uses everyday objects to create quirky and eye catching designs. Not only are her patterns gorgeous but she also ensure all her stationery is printed on planet-friendly papers too.

I really love her simplistic drawing style and her use of colour. Gabrielle was lovely enough to send me an email (along with some other very kind designers who I hope to feature in the coming weeks)with some fab pointers for getting my own pattern design business started and telling me how she herself had started up The Green Gables.

Gabrielle is celebrating The Green Gables 2nd year birthday this week by offering 20% off everything on her website - for more details click here.

Do go and have a nosey at her blog and website, it will put a smile on your face, I promise.

Hello,Long time no speak. Sorry I have been so quiet, I went on holiday to Tunisia for 2 weeks on a bit of a last minute break away. While I was there I took over 300 pictures a lot of them were of patterns both man made and natural (with a few taken of 3 unexpected visitors a snake, a scorpion and a lizard!!) I will do a blog post about my little break away later in the week so stay tuned ... (it is more than likely that T is for Tunisia!!)Anywhoo, lets get back to today's post: B - is for baby (I am promising myself I am going to finish my A-Z challenge even if it kills me - I will get all 26 letters done!) I originally did these designs for the Hallmark design competition which was to create a design suitable for a new baby range. However, I thought I would use them towards my little A-Z challenge too.

The 'A Brand new mini you' placement prints I would use on a new baby greetings card. The four star designs I would use on co-ordinating gift wrap and gift bags. I wanted my card design to be a little bit different and quirky. I really quite like these designs and may get some sample cards printed to see how they would look as an actual product.